JULY KEY FIGURES

		Jul '18	Jun '18 to Jul '18	Jul '17 to Jul '18
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	766.6	0.1	2.8
	Seasonally adjusted	768.1	0.2	..
	Original	774.4	..	..
Short-term resident returns
	Trend	931.8	0.3	5.8
	Seasonally adjusted	926.2	0.9	..
	Original	1133.6	..	..
.. not applicable

Visitor arrivals, Short-term

Resident returns, Short-term

JULY KEY POINTS

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term visitor arrivals during July 2018 (766,600 movements) increased 0.1% when compared with June 2018 (765,600 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.3% for both May and June 2018. The current trend estimate for arrivals is 2.8% higher than in July 2017.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During July 2018, short-term visitor arrivals (768,100 movements) increased 0.2% when compared with June 2018 (766,800 movements). This followed increases of 1.1% for May 2018 and 0.4% for June 2018.
• Original estimates: There were 774,400 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in July 2018.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT RETURNS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term resident returns during July 2018 (931,800 movements) increased 0.3% when compared with June 2018 (929,200 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.8% for May 2018 and 0.5% for June 2018. The current trend estimate for returns is 5.8% higher than in July 2017.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During July 2018, short-term resident returns (926,200 movements) increased 0.9% when compared with June 2018 (918,100 movements). This followed a monthly increase of 1.1% in May 2018 and a monthly decrease of 1.9% in June 2018.
• Original estimates: There were 1,133,600 short-term resident returns to Australia in July 2018.

NOTES


FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
August 2018	17 October 2018
September 2018	19 November 2018
October 2018	17 December 2018
November 2018	18 January 2019
December 2018	19 February 2019
January 2019	15 March 2019
February 2019	11 April 2019
March 2019	13 May 2019
April 2019	12 June 2019
May 2019	12 July 2019
June 2019	15 August 2019
July 2019	11 September 2019

DATA NOTES

In July 2017, the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs introduced changes to the incoming passenger card. The change was to capture the main reason for journey for both residents returning, and visitors arriving in Australia. The ABS has noted changes in the distribution of responses to the question on main reason for journey for short-term visitor arrivals in recent months, notably an increase in the number of persons reporting that the main reason for travel was visiting friends and relatives and a decline in the number of persons reporting the main reason was a holiday. Investigations by Home Affairs has made changes to the process of coding main reason for journey from the new incoming passenger card, and to further assist in improving quality the imputation for main reason for journey was reviewed and improved by the ABS.

In June 2018, the ABS identified a data quality issue with the country of residence of Bangladesh being high for short-term visitor movements. There was a corresponding decrease for Singapore and Malaysia. This is being investigated further by Home Affairs in collaboration with the ABS. Until the issue is resolved, users should exercise caution when analysing recent statistics for country of residence of Bangladesh, Singapore and Malaysia for short-term visitor arrivals and short-term visitor departures. Adjustments have been applied to the seasonally adjusted and trend series for short-term visitor arrivals for Bangladesh for May to July 2018.

This release contains overseas movement data which should not be interpreted as 'persons'. See paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.

The statistics in this release have been rounded. See paragraph 33 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.


INQUIRIES

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